Mamavation Monday

Fresh new week… Clean Slate and starting again….

This past week I really began cleaning out the clutter and trying to organize the house more. I know I seem to be doing that all the time. But this time I’ve been just working in small areas at the time. I’ve been using a timer to help and only do about 15 min in each room. Well except the boy’s room upstairs I spent about 3 hours in there because if I come down from upstairs I so don’t want to go back up the and because its out of sight its alot easier to forget about going back up. Im not finished in there but the rule is they have to atleast keep it the way I have it right now or what I find on the floor is put into a box and they have to earn it back! Slowly I will regain this house so we can begin to do some upgrades to it that we want to do. Since we won’t be moving anytime in the near future I want to get this house more like my home.

@Bookieboo @babybookieboo @NcCarterFamily @GregDevlin at #bloggycon

I also was given the opportunity to attend BloggyCon with the awesome Leah and of course BabyBookieBoo was there. I met some many awesome people there who I can’t wait to get to know better both online and off. There were awesome sponsors there as well. I honestly think it was one of the best conferences for first timers like myself. I will say that I thinking having BabyBookieBoo with me helped alot. He is an awesome ice breaker Words can not express my gratitude for Leah for allowing me to spend that time with her. Fecal matter, and crazy shuttle rides and all. The experince was PRICELESS!!!!

*look for a post soon that is on my bloggycon expereince*

We have our Graduate Campaign coming up… I believe its 2 weeks aways AHHHHHHHH!!!! Holy Cow only 2 weeks to go! But I am very excited to take part in my 4th Campaign. I hope you will all come join us on his crazy roller coaster ride. Shannon will be in the seat right because she is totally my Partner In Crime!

This week our guest on Mamavation TV is Joshua Medcalf I was able to hear him speak once before during Fitcation12. After a talk with him he will definitely have you seeing things in a different light. I know that no matter what everyone will take something away from hearing him speak.

I have so many wonderful ideas and plans floating around in my brain I can’t wait to start applying them to my life and I hope that you will come along and enjoy the ride!

Words to Remember

 

“This post is sponsored by Olay and hosted by Mamavation – a community dedicated to obesity prevention &weight loss for women and I’m writing this to be entered into a giveaway” at the bottom of your post.”

 

Mamavation Monday….

Eeeeek… Its been way too long since I’ve updated my blog. I have to get back into the atleast once a week posting. Its just been 50 Shades of Cray Cray around here. Im struggling with getting into my groove with everything. Between the struggles with the kids and with the house and just life in general. But Im getting there. This week is clean house and prep for BloggyCon. I leave on thursday and come home on Saturday but get to hang with the awesome Leah @Bookieboo and my lil man #babybookieboo who is just chock full of awesomeness. 2 boys have been home on their intersession and the have 1 more week to go after this one, and the oldest is growing and changing daily. Welcome to the world of Puberty. He made an A+ on his first project in middle school. Which was what he was shooting for! Well I have cleaning to do and a mamavation tv show t attend.

Mamavation Wk 1

So this was my first week with the Unofficial Start to the Graduate Campagin. I have an AMAZING Partner Shannon. Its kind of nice because we have done a campagin together before so we know how to push eachother. We also have some awesome cheerleaders! Well I just realized with all the craziness last week having a sinus infection and chest cold and who knows what else I never posted my before weight scale pic. I took before pictures and I plan to share them later on but I just can’t share them yet, but I will soon… So here is my before weight pic my starter That means yes I have gained quite a bit back but actually I lost about 8lbs in total the week of fitcation and the week after. But I’ve been getting my butt kicked this week and working on things I haven’t been hard core because of my sickness but this is my first week weigh in.

So that gives me a 2.6lb weight loss for week one. Which I think is pretty decent! I am really having to figure out the best time for me to work out because our school schedule is getting pretty hectic and my middle schooler has thrown me for a loop. He like instantly grew up over night. He has his own style and is now in band and wants to stay afterschool for 2 hours 4 days a week. Which really will be awesome because it will give him time to get help on his homework and I can get little peoples homework done before he comes in. C man has been going thru some Im not quite a kid but yet Im not quite a teenager. Now with Jakers he’s his own post, we are in the process of re-evals at school to change his IEP things at school. He’s also getting in that odd area where he’s not a toddler anymore but not quite to age level either he’s in that inbetween stage too.

I have learned that working out in classes or groups is a lot easier to push yourself than when you are working out at home. Its a big difference and I’m looking into if I can start going to a class once a week. I would love to be able to go do a kick boxing class once a week atleast. We are also looking into getting into the pool more often for the boys and my father in law because he’s been having lots of issues with his health and I think getting him moving more in aqua therapy would be great for him. Well until next time….

“This post is sponsored by Dole and hosted by Mamavation – a community dedicated to obesity prevention & weight loss for women and I’m writing this to be entered into a giveaway”

Fitcation12 Thank You!!!

Fitcation12 was such a major event for me to be able to attend. I was able to get together with a wonderful group of 20 Woman and 1 Man who’ve I’ve spent years building a relationship with. We all had such a huge bond from being apart of Mamavation that being able to get together as a whole and share lots of Hugs, kisses, Pinches laughs and tears. None of this would have even been possible if not for our AMAZING Sponsors!

Dole was amazing. They put us up at the beautiful Four Seasons Hotel in Westlake Village for our 3 night stay. This is such a beautiful hotel, I still think there are parts of it we didn’t even have a chance to see but the hotel had us all in awe the whole trip. Dole invited us to come to their headquarters which conveniently was just a short little walk across to them and provided us with a tour of their spectacular building. The breakfast we had at dole was amazingly delicious and the best part was it was all a Gluten Free breakfast. We ate outside on their beautiful patio with the waterfalls and walking trails. I seriously could have sat out there and relaxed the whole day away. Now it was time to get down to business so to speak. We headed into the test kitchen and learned all about new products that Dole has out and how they come up with new recipes. We learned about everything from where they get their products new lines they have coming out and we even got to try some out! Chia Seeds and Mushroom Powder are amazing and my kids will be getting so much more of them incorporated in their diets. That afternoon we were welcomed back to find out more about Dole and their quest to Feed the world healthy foods not just processed junk! Mushroom Powder is awesome.  It provides you with all your vitamin D needs which is one thing most of us can use some help in. But you can hide it in anything, because it has no taste. But it does smell like Chocolate

New Balance were awesome enough to provide us with some awesome new PURPLE minimus shoes. They are so cute and comfy and didn’t even need to break them in like most shoes. We wore them for most of our workouts and on Saturday for our adventures in LA we all wore our Cute Purple New Balance shoes. I love the fact that they are so lightweight because I am usually not a shoe wearer unless its winter time and there is snow on the ground.

Subway provided us with a lavish spread for our lunch on Friday. They are one of the best fast food health places that you can choose to eat at. We had so much salads and sandwiches and veggies to choose from. Subway is one of our favorite go to quick meals at home with the boys so it was awesome that they were willing to provide us with some very nutritious food on Friday during our hectic busy day. But I will tell you sitting around eating subway and
hanging out with girlfriends and listening to our speaker Joshua Medcalf that
day was one of the best lunches we had the whole weekend. Thank you subway for allowing us that bonding girl time with comfort food

Leading Lady Bras… Let me tell you as a girl with Big Girls. It is extremely hard to find a bra that fits and is comfortable and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to buy. They sent us all a bra and we did girl checks through the day when we wore them. I think my favorite part was on Saturday when we played guess who’s girls these are while we were traveling through Los Angeles. We tweeted pics of our girls and see who could guess who’s was who’s. It was quite fun and provided lots of giggles both at fitcation and at home lol. They also hosted our Dinner on Saturday night and that was the best morroccan food I’ve ever had we all shimmed and shook what our mama’s gave us on the dance floor with the belly dancer that night too. Oh and don’t forget until 10/14/12 use discount code FIT15 for a 15% at LeadingLady

Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village was spectacular to date it was the nicest hotel I’ve personally ever stayed in. You could get lost in that hotel very easily and I think a few of us did at times. The bathrooms were amazing I know a lot of girls had fun with the phone in the bathroom. They have anything you could need at this hotel and they were also gracious enough to allow us to use the pool and other areas even after we checked out from our stay. I can’t wait to go back and spend more time at the hotel. The hotel also as the California Health and Longevity Institute there. You might recognize this place from shows like Extreme Makeover Weightloss edition and biggest Loser. They have a beautiful spa and health institute that has everything under the sun in it they can do just about everything there so its an all-inclusive experience for their guests. We were given a tour and it was just beautiful the walking trails are amazing and I hope to be able to spend more time on them next time I head out to California!

SIP Certified Organic Wines provided us with a wonderful selection of their wines and we took every opportunity we could to take a few sips. We even mixed some with our Dole juices. You would be surprised with how many different reasons a group of women can come up with for reasons to have a glass! It was very delicious wine and we enjoyed every SIP of that wine.

Wait this was suppose to be a Fitcation right… You ask where does the fit come in at? Well trust me we were all walking a little funny at all of these events you’ve already read about. But now lets talk about the workouts….

Fit Body Boot Camp provided us with our first ass kicking work out. Steve yes I’ll call him Steve but trust me during the workout we all wanted to call him different names. Gave us a 30 minute workout and we all found muscles we didn’t even know existed. Lots of lunges, burpees, push up, crunches. Eeeeeek it was crazy but it was a great workout and he was amazing.

 

Hoopnotica was our Saturday workout. This one I am still trying to get the hang of we had a wonderful instructor that had 95% of the class hooping before the end. I was part of that 5% but with the DVD’s and the Hoop we were given I will eventually get the hang of it. Who knew hooping would burn so many calories. I did burn alot of calories during Hoopnotica but it was baby carrying lol…

I did an extra workout the night before fitcation and want to thank Leah and Mark both for allowing me to go kickboxing with them. It was one of my favorite excersizes from the whole weekend.  Plan to see more about each of our sponsors soon from me but I just wanted say thank you so for for them.

Fitcation was sponsored by Dole, Four Seasons Westlake Village, the California Health and Longevity Institute, Sip the Good Life, New Balance, Subway and Leading Lady Bras.  These sponsors provided the attendees with lodging, meals, activities and product during the event.  As an attendee, I was asked to give my honest opinion and all opinions are 100% my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of these organizations.

In the air again

Its Monday… Im still on the route towards home from spending an amazing few days with my Sistas at Fitcation12. It was such an awesome trip to take. I am thrilled that I took the chance to go and do this. I took so much away from this trip, much more than just the information we learned while we were there. I learned that I can leave my kids and they will be back and alive when I come home. Well atleast they were this time! I learned that I can do things that are way out of my comfort zone, I would have never thought I would do half the things I did this weekend. But I know this was a life changing experience that as I comb through it all new things will begin to unfold. Because I am so not even beginning to process what all I learned yet, I have a day or 2 before I can even begin. Seriously I have been go go go and my Sunday was such a long day, Wednesday Hunter will go to Middle School Meet and Greet night, His Ma will take him because David and I are taking Charlie to go see Big Time Rush in Concert. It was so nice to be able to put faces with names and to be able to physically hold and do other things with these crazy women. I know I’ll see these girls again soon, With all of our awesomeness combined we can only be contained together once a year.

Today we will find out the Finalists for Mamavation Mom. Then next week we will start a brand new campaign! Its always a great time to meet the new girls who want to be the next group of moms.
A huge thing I learned it I can fit into the airplane seat and buckle in without an extension. Its tight but it clicks! I can kick box with the Orginal Bookieoo Badass herself and her wonderful husband Mark and FINISH a class! I can travel alone. I am THE baby whisperer!
Well Its been a long 6 days and I’ve still got time before my next flight. My brain is no longer working, its still somewhere swimming in the Pacific Ocean maybe hanging out with the Snake Man, but either way my brain is all loopy from lack of sleep. So til we meet again!

Paleo and Fitcation12

Oh Goodness everyone this past week has been busy and you know what it doesn’t look like its gonna be slowing down anytime soon because I have a busy rest of the month planned. I have learned that scheduled busy is better than chaotic busy and that is a huge thing for me to learn. But when Im busy I get more steps in and I end up not mindlessly eating but on the other hand sometimes I get super busy and forget to eat all together which is just as bad because you’ll over eat later on.

Grrr… Lets try this middle topic about Fitcation again. Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past few months. Then you know I have been preparing for a NonConference Conference with a very important group of woman and man in my life. Mamavation has our yearly conference. First off let me say thank you to Leah and all the behind the scene people who have worked their asses off for this awesome event. We have some majorly awesome sponsors. Dole who are putting us up at an awesome hotel and giving us a tour of their headquarters. Leading Lady Bras are giving us bras to wear and our sponsoring some of our event. I am extremely excited to try out their Bras because I am always looking for a good bra for the girls! Subway is providing some of our breakfast and lunches during our trip. Yum! We have alot of other sponsors and goodies that I’ll get to post about afterwards. If you can’t tell I am super excited to be able to attend this. Good Food, Good Company, Good Wine, GREAT Times! Im so excited that a couple of us are even gonna hang out the night before!

Now our topic Monday night is Paleo. Which is something I have been learning more and more about. Its also called the Caveman or Dinosaur Diet. Its very clean and very basic eating. I am excited to learn more Monday night as our guest has lots to teach us!

Well I could go on and on about the events I have for this week… I’ve only got a few goals for the week…

• Pack the 2 older boys up for their Young Marine Encampment
• Lay out school clothes for the week
• Pack for Fitcation12
• Enjoy time with my boys, This will be the farthest and LONGEST mommy has ever left
• Relax and Enjoy and have an awesome time at Fitcation12
• Lots of Hugs and ass pinching
• Getting my ass kicked in workouts!
• Major baby time as the “UNofficial Baby Bookieboo Nanny”

WoW well I guess I have more goals than I thought!

“This post is sponsored by GoVida Foods and hosted by Mamavation – a community dedicated to obesity prevention & weight loss for women and I’m writing this to be entered into a giveaway.”

Its All Most August….

Well another week has passed lots of changes in the air but we still have a few weeks before they happen

This week I am ashamed to say that I haven’t really worked out at all I’ve let life get in the way too much. But I did sit down and schedule in 2 a day workouts for this week. I have got to get more workouts in or Im gonna get my ass handed too me much worse at fitcation than I already am. I have been extremely stressed this week and I know that I need to workout to have an outlet for my stress but yet I allow life to get into the way. I have been juggling with the finances to see if a gym membership would be possible. I think I would benefit from getting out of the house some as well.

Having 1 child home versus having 3 or even 2 home is a big difference for me. The nice thing is he’s old enough to kinda fend for himself but he’s also old enough that would be perfectly intent sitting in front of electronics all day and not using his brain. He has been reading and he is going over to a teacher’s house this week one day to go to her husbands studio She is an amazing teacher. She was his tutor for math and reading when he was in 4th grade and then she became a teacher assistant and still checked in on him. She is now a EC teacher and works with Jakers. She is so good with the kids and has such a kind heart. I love her and her love of students.

The boys didn’t have their PT test this week due to the heat. So I am sure that will be added to our August events. I think right now they feel like they are never going to graduate. They still have 3 things to pass. Their written test, PT, and encampment. I think I am glad they are doing their encampment while I am away because I would be a nervous wreck at home. It will also give Jakers some 1 on 1 time with his Dad and grandparents.

Jakers is well he’s just that. He is doing amazing in school which is awesome and I am so glad that he is able to hold it together there but boy are there afternoons we pay for it at home. His new dosage of meds seem to be working.  We are still working on the bedtime routine to get him in bed at the same time each night. We are also going to try some Yoga with him at bedtime and see if that may help some. If he receives 5 more Happy Faces this week he will have earned another trip to the Lego Store!

I have our dinners planned out. Lunches are pretty simple and thrown together.

• Lemon Chicken with Green Beans and boiled potatoes
• Tacos on Romaine Lettuce
• 50/50 Bacon Burgers with homemade fries
• Crockpot Salisbury Steak Mashed Cauliflower and Peas
• Parmesan Crusted Talpia Potato and Veggie Casserole
• Chicken Nuggets and Broc and Cheese Casserole

Going for all Gluten Free this week, even adding bacon in one night and you all know how much I despise bacon. Im hoping it being cooked into the meat it will be okay. My goals for this week are:

1. 100oz daily water (this usually happens for me)
2. stay on dinner plan no extra trips to the store
3. atleast 6 work outs
4. work on stress
5. Work on todo list leading up to me leaving

Well that pretty much sums me up for this week…. We are on the count down to Fitcation12 and let me tell you have a list 3 miles long of stuff to prepare for before I go!

“This post is sponsored by Get Unreal and hosted by Mamavation – a community dedicated to obesity prevention & weight loss for women and I’m writing this to be entered into a giveaway.”

Mamavation Monday

NSV: I did it I Cowgirl’d up and got my ears pierced on Thursday Night!!!!!

Okay so it’s the weekend again. WoW this week was a blur. The 2 younger boys started back to school. I am happy to report that Jakers had 5 happy face days in a row. Which earned the boys a trip to the LEGO store. The boys love that place. Legos are huge for Jakers right now. But with all the new changes going on I have found that I MUST get my house organized and decluttered because I don’t have time to do any of the things I want to do because its a battle. I want to have the time to devote the attention to our food choices and not throw something together last minute because we ran out of time. I want to be able to spend my time making memories with my family and not constantly trying to catch up and put off the memories for another day. I also think it would be so much better on everyone in the house to have Calmness and a routine verses Chaos and who knows. Im clearing out the “office” and turning it into Jakers room. So that he can have his own area which I can create the environment that he needs. I am also thinking of clearing out the play room and seperating the boys into their own rooms. But before any of this can be done I have to get the house organized and decluttered. I know that the boys and I both crave this and so its my job to make it happen. I am also creating a spot in the bedroom that I can keep all my workout stuff at so that I can dedicate the time it deserves. I want to be able to spend time working out not putting it off because I need to clean up. But you know what! Im not getting anything done sitting here writing this blog post! So I need to put some actions to my words!

Goals for the Week:

100oz Water Daily

Work Out 5 times minimum

Spends 20min on Me time

Get Routines and Schedules Made

30min atleast with each boy

I am going to discuss with David this evening and will update my Post with our Menu Plan for the week. I am also going to implement family fitness more into our daily schedule. The boys have their ERYM *Eno River Young Marines* PT test this Thursday night. They have to do PT tests a few times per year so it will give us a good baseline and goals for them to work towards. They are almost done with Boot Camp. They need to complete this PT, and their test of knowledge history, ranks, etc and do an encampment in August *sniff I’ll miss it bc I’ll be in CA with you fine peoples* but I wouldn’t be with them either way bc no parents are allowed.

Blogging Carnival

This week our guest is Judith Belmont and our topic is about Abuse and Weight loss. I know that this one will hit close to home and will stir up alot of skeletons in my closet but I am a firm believer that you need to stir them up on occasions because if you don’t you will never be able to over come them and battle them.

“This post is sponsored by GoVida Foods and hosted by Mamavation – a community dedicated to obesity prevention & weight loss for women and I’m writing this to be entered into a giveaway.”

Mamavation Monday

So its Monday again well almost monday lol… technically its Sunday. But either way its a fresh new week. To be quite honest last week is a major blur for me. I know I worked out some then a certain person who gave me 125 burpees which incidentally killed me. I popped my hip out of join and fell so I was out of commission for the majority of the week. This week was a rough week with Jakers. I think one of his meds is turning him EVIL more aggressive. I am use to aggressive sides from him. When he was younger he would throw things at my head to communicate but a sippy cup verses a wooden bat is where we are at now. The older boys have been hanging out alot next door at Ma and Pa’s house because its quieter safer and just alot easier for them. Monday morning the younger 2 are back to school. Which is extremely stressful for me. Cman Im not too worried about because he is getting an awesome teacher and he is very flexible and can work with most situations he is in. Jakers on the other hand has a new teacher and when I last spoke with her on Thursday she had yet to even open up Jakers IEP. So I am majorly stressing on how this year is going to start out. Not to mention that he has to have a complete eval by October because its A) time for his 3 year re eval and B) he’s turning 8 and can no longer be labeled as DD.

I am happy to announce that I’ve LOST 5lbs since I haven’t stepped on the scale in 2 weeks. The scale and I weren’t seeing eye to eye so I’ve been focusing on my nutrition more than my scale. I’ve gotten really interested in the GMO’s and joining in with Leah promoting getting companies to label all the GMO’s. If you don’t know about GMO’s I recommend you go here and read all about it. http://www.mamavation.com/2012/07/labeling-gmos-join-the-evangelist-team-for-prop-37.html It really hits home with me having special needs children and really working on eating clean and knowing what I am putting in my body and my families body.

Goals for this week:

•  Menu Plan and Grocery Shop Happy to Announce I actually got this done already
• Jakers to the Autism Dr.
• atleast 64oz H2O daily
• Staying Dry til Fitcation *yes its a goal*
• Packing lunches for the boys 4 of 5 days
• Working Out

Well that about sums it up for today and the bed is calling my name shhhh… don’t you hear it??

“This post is sponsored by FFIT and hosted by Mamavation – a community dedicated to obesity prevention & weight loss for women and I’m writing this to be entered into a giveaway”

Mamavation Monday

Another week down…. this is the start of our LAST WEEK of SUMMER!!!! Well for the younger two boys it is. We’ve had my parents for the last 2 weeks which is always fun. But it will be great to get back to our regular schedule. This past weekend I’ve gotten to have private time just Jakers and myself (my parents for a few days) but it was great to have that time to reconnect with him on another level. The other 2 were in for a special treat they got to go to Tnn and have a Special MENS weekend with his Dad and Pa. They went up to the Tennesse house and they were able to spend HOURS in the lake swimming and fishing and lots of fun.

There are pros and cons to being semi alone in the house I either A: mindless eat or B: forget to eat at all. So this week I am really trying to be mindful about my eating. It also doesn’t help that its been 100+ and I don’t really feel hungry then. So I am trying to make sure I get atleast my 3 meals in and make sure they are good filling meals. We are still working on eating as clean as possible. We are gluten Free for the most part I am 100% and David and the boys are more GF than eating Gluten its just easier that way. We are slowly taking things away and adding more and more real and fresh. We tried going Paleo but learned that it was too much too quickly with the boys so we are slowly introducing and removing items from their diet.

I really think it good for me to have these few days without David around because it gives me time to have me time and refocus and remember that I can do things on my own. Which is something I need to remember from time to time. But I also have to learn that its okay to step back and not handle EVERYTHING. Which Im taking a HUGE step by going to Fitcation12. It will be my first trip to the west coast and my first trip without the boys. Tickets are bought transportation arranged now just waiting for August to get here!!!!!

Goals for this week

• Make sure I am drinking atleast 100oz of Water
• Meet my Calorie Intake
• work out 6 of 7 days minimum
• Enjoy quality time with my Jakers
• Menu Plan for next week including back to school lunches
• Prepare for the 2 young boys to head back to school

Well that pretty much sums up my week… Until the next one

 This post is sponsored by Omron and hosted by Mamavation – a community dedicated to obesity prevention & weight loss for women and I’m writing this to be entered into a giveaway” at the bottom of your post